


Building a Mystery

by mspennydreadful



Series: Kane & Lilith [4]
Category: Batwoman (TV 2019)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 11:28:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21298718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mspennydreadful/pseuds/mspennydreadful
Summary: Kate's never worn a mask before, never hidden in the shadows. But Batwoman needs to.
Relationships: Kate Kane & Bruce Wayne
Series: Kane & Lilith [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1518215
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	Building a Mystery

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note: I've been struggling for days to figure out a song for this week's episode, for the themes that rang through for me, and I've honestly not found anything that works. So this one's for the title only, and I hope to be back to the whole music-as-inspo thing next week.

Kate Kane is many things, has been called many things in her life. Daughter, twin, 'survivor', 'promising' (_ugh_), cadet, soldier, _dyke_, -- descriptors, too, and uglier things that dyke. Candy Kane -- she fucking hates _that one_. Kathy, briefly. Rarely Katherine, especially after her father remarried. Never Katie. 

Never _liar_. Too proud, sure. Reckless, cocksure (so to speak); arrogant, even, she'll take that. But she's never lied. Never hidden herself or her pain or her pride. She's been half in and out of the spotlight for years, never courting it like Bruce had -- smart-ass Pimpernel bastard, hiding in plain sight -- but never flinching from it. Nah. Her capacity to give a fuck about the whispers and stares died in the flashbulbs of so many pleas for help to find her sister, and she's never shrunk since. Never made herself small or any of that shit, never bothered with the varied personae expected from people of her class -- masks, she'd always thought, were just a way to hide. That famous quote about giving a man a mask so he'll speak his truth? Between Batman and the freakshow that fought him, she'd long thought masks were a license to be your worst self, more than anything else.

She wanders the batcave and wonders, now, if she's compromising herself, her certainty, with what she's doing. From what it sounds like, maybe only a small handful of people ever really knew her cousin for the man he truly -- was? is? who even knows that much? She'd like to ask him if it was all worth it. If it works itself out, or if the minute that you let it become a numbers game, you lose entirely. Riddle me that, asshole, she thinks.

The work she's doing in the cowl is necessary. Kate knows that, and she knows that Bruce had to know that for the work he did. Beth saw straight through the Kevlar, though, and she's targeting Dad anyway, so the usual rationalisations for being a costumed vigilante don't really stand here. She's not doing this for her immediate circle: it's only a matter of time before Dad figures it out. Probably Mary, too -- she's sharper than anyone credits her with being (and she wonders if Luke and Mary would get along, given their own secret identities) and she'd probably understand better than most. Sophie--

Sophie's her own problem about six times over, and she's pretty sure that Kate's Batwoman. It's only the distances that she's chosen herself that keep her from pressing her point. Kate's deeply divided about how she sees that playing out, and more deeply divided about how she _wants_ that to play out. People tell you who they are, Alfred would say, you just need to listen. (Was she not listening enough to her cousin? Was that his guardian's point?) And Sophie's been telling Kate that she doesn't mean anything to her since the day Kate got back. She's not only married, she's rewritten her history and her life and Kate's nowhere in those pages. What's that about? 

That -- that's something to think about another time. Maybe that's Sophie's mask and Kevlar, and maybe Kate really does need to let go and focus on her own.

She's doing this for Gotham. For the little girl she'd saved from the exploding pearl, and looked into her eye. Maybe that's why Bruce did it, too. Because Gotham is a city in need of a hero, no matter how flawed. And Kate's been looking for a way to serve for a long time. It's in her blood and her loss and her pain, same as Dad. The mark of Kane has become the bat signal, because a bat can get to places that crows can't, and do things that they won't. This needs to let this play out on the chessboard of Gotham's streets, and take on the mantle of the Red Queen in place of the Dark Knight to do it.

_You live in a church_  
Where you sleep with voodoo dolls  
And you won't give up the search  
For the ghosts in the halls  
You wear sandals in the snow  
And a smile that won't wash away  
Can you look out the window  
Without your shadow getting in the way? 


End file.
